Jorge Diaz-Rullo did Chris Sharma's El Bon Combat (9b) in in 2020. It took him 32 days and for almost two months he lived in the area alone in his van. "It has cost me so much, it's my antistyle and the conditions did not help at all... It was truly, very difficult for me! So long story short, whatever the grade is, I'm just happy to have done it! 😃💥"

Sera Gearhart has done her third 8A+, all of them in 2022. "Finally did this one and felt like I was floating. Learned a lot and had a lot of fun in the process, definitely hardest of the grade I've done." (c) Ryan Moon

Could you say something about the process how you took it down?
This one was really hard for me! I spent a lot of sessions falling on the move to the 10 start. My main goal was to not get really mental from falling on the same move so I tried to be really patient and only go to the boulder maximum once per week. So glad that process worked out! Now I'm looking to try Automator and Nuthin but sunshine in RMNP in a few weeks :)

Shawn Raboutou reports on Insta that he last summer did the FA of Fuck the System 8C+ in Fionnay. It is a low start to Foundation Edge which Dave Graham put up in 2013 and Shawn repeated in 2018. (c) Clément Lechaptois

Shawn is the older brother of Brooke Raboutou who is currently #3 in the Boulder World Cup. Their parents are Didier and Robyn Erbesfield who were leading climbers during the 90'ies. Shawn has previously done (at least) three 8C+ and 20+ 8C's meaning his track record is among the Top-10 in the world.

Natalia Grossman won the Boulder World Cup in Salt Lake City, the only one topping out all four boulders in the final. The 20-year-old has during the last seven Boulder WCs always been Top-2, including being the World Champion in 2021. Among the male, 18-year-old Mejdi Schalck got his first WC victory after barely making it to the final, beating Tomoa Narasaki #7 with one attempt. Jakob Schubert, the only one doing all four boulders in the semi-final had the opposite result ending #6 in the final.

It should be mentioned that the difficulty of the boulders throughout the whole competition was perfect beside one semi-final boulder for the girls. On that boulder everyone but one made the zone on their first attempt but nobody made the top. Noteworthy is also that, although Japan had the best overall results with three podiums, Austria had four athletes making the final. (c) Daniel Gajda

1. Natalia Grossman USA 44 - Mejdi Schalck FRA 44 (9)
2. Brooke Raboutou USA 34 (5) - Yoshiyuki Ogata JPN 44 (11)
3. Miho Nonaka JPN 34 (9) - Rei Kawamata JPN 34
4. Jessica Pilz AUT 34 (16) - Nicolai Uznik AUT 23
5. Franziska Sterrer AUT 13 (1) - Yannick Flohé GER 14
6. Camilla Moroni ITA 13 (2) - Jakob Schubert AUT 12

Michaela Kirsch, who three days ago did an 8B in Magic Woods reports on Insta that she has done one more, Riverbed. Amazingly, she just needed 3 + 2 sessions in order to do them both so clearly 8B+ should be possible with some more work. (c) Nina Williams

How do you like Magic Woods and how long will you stay?
I absolutely love it here! I’ll stay until early June!

Solveig Korherr has had a great trip to Céüse where she onsighted Le chirurgien du crépuscule (8b). "Wow! I’m really surprised and proud of this accomplishment. It was definitely my style and I guess with a bit of luck by reading the sequences well and a lot of trying hard somehow I made it to the top without falling. The slab was really nerve-wracking though, I almost blew it up there :D"

Later, on her fifth day, the 23-year-old did Dures limites (8c). "Probably one of my favourite ones so far. The first crux fit me much better than the top one. After falling three times in a row on the very last big move, I’m super psyched I finally stuck it from the ground. Thanks, Jon and all the strong Briançon kids for cheering me on!"

Previously she has onsighed four 8b's and redpointed 20 routes 8c to 9a. In the 8a ranking game, the german is #2. (c) Jon Shen